Feeling the Heat!

I'll be looking back at this summer with amazement, the heatwave continues, although with some showers predicted later or tomorrow (Sunday 1st July).  I can't remember a spell like this for many years, and I'm getting on a bit! We have guests in our holiday cottage from the Netherlands who must wonder if they came to the right country.  This is WALES not Italy?!! 

But we must now be needing the rain, the grass is turning yellow and is dry and dusty and the wildlife must be starting to suffer, although there are still plenty of rabbits around and the badger hoovered up all the peanuts last night before turning to the water bowl, so clearly not desperate for a drink.  A fox came up the drive and should have spotted the water bowl, but as he's clearly spooked by the camera he's definitely not brave enough to take a drink out of the new shiny thing, no matter how desperate he might be!  The badger, on the other hand, isn't phased by this at all and makes the most of the new offering.

If you turn the sound up on this one you hear the Tawny Owl hooting close by. 

We're Having a Heatwave, a Tropical Heatwave!

Last post it was wild and windy, so we've gone from being more like autumn to a climate more like an Italian summer!  I haven't been out with the trail cameras very much for various reasons, one being the weather sometimes making me feel just too lazy to bother.  But last few nights have started again, also putting a bowl of water out for the wildlife.  First night a badger (possibly two) found it and appreciated the drink, which is so nice to see.

A fox also made a very brief appearance, shame he didn't want to hang around for more than a few seconds!  But good to know there is at least one still around.

A Wild and Windy Night

Very wild and windy last night, but it didn't stop the badgers coming by and finding the scattering of peanuts by the trail cameras.  Success at last!  Was beginning to think they'd all deserted me.  Now see the difference between the Browning and Apeman cameras.  I don't think you need me to tell you which is which.

It's always a pleasure to see the Red Kites circling overhead, but they mostly seem to drift off out of camera range whenever I try to get a shot.  Got lucky with this one last summer in the Elan Valley but really should try harder to get a photo when it's close to the house!

Red Kite

The birds are going to love these thistles later in the year when they all go to seed!

This squirrel is a constant visitor to our bird table just lately.  Very cute!  I took the photo through glass and am pleased with the result.  The glass usually fogs the picture a little, but this time I seem to have got away with it.

The Foxgloves are now starting to show, one of my favourites

Secrets of the Night

All quiet on the trail cameras apart from this brief look at a badger passing near the house.  I don't put food out for the badgers near the house otherwise the already-too-fat cat will eat it too on his midnight strolls, so there are no peanuts or other bits of food to make this badger stop by the camera.  And of course it's the inferior Apeman camera I have down by the front gate!  Nothing on the two Brownings, but that's sod's law!

It was a lovely evening tonight when I went out to set up the cameras before dark.  There were quite a few bats flying around and I could constantly hear an owl hooting not far away.  I do find dusk to be a magical time of day, when the night creatures are preparing to come out of hiding.  The cameras reveal this secret world and it's always a pleasure and quite exciting to check them out the next day to see what - if anything - they reveal.  Secrets of the night seem so much more special than anything from the daytime!  Hopefully better luck tonight, fingers crossed!

Re-Wilding and Tree Planting

Another area of the land now set aside for re-wilding.  This field had been cut just to look "tidy" as it is our "back-yard" and we were going to make use of it.  But now we find we really don't need that space and nature needs it more than we do.  So from now on it will be allowed to grow wild, apart from a winding path which will enable us to enjoy walking through the grasses and seeing the butterflies, moths and bees that we hope to encourage. 

Re-wilding in progress

And now the final two Horse Chestnut trees grown from conkers have also been planted on the edge of the latest "re-wilding" meadow.  TLC needed to make sure they survive!

Another area now set aside for grasses and wild flowers to grow.

Letting nature take it's course wherever we can

We are keeping areas of nettles for the butterflies, moths and insects, which will in turn help the birds and other wildlife.

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I found this beauty today amongst the grasses and am reliably informed it is a Ghost Moth, a female as it is yellow and orange.  https://www.ukmoths.org.uk/species/hepialus-humuli/female-4/

Female Ghost Moth

Wild flower meadow

Unusually, all quiet on the trail cameras last night, just the very briefest glimpse of a badger's backside on one camera, and one single sheep on the other.  Where has all the wildlife gone!?  The few nuts I'd scattered on the ground were still there in the morning, untouched.  Badgers usually seek them out no matter where I put them.  The previous night I did hear a fox barking not far from my bedroom window.  It sounded so close I thought I might see it, so at 3am I looked out.  Despite some pale moonlight there was nothing to see and nothing on the trail cameras the following day.  Frustrating, but within the next day or two a second Browning camera should arrive so I will be able to spread the cameras over a wider area with more chance of catching whatever might be around.  

In theory at least!

In the meantime, here is a glimpse of my latest "project," if you can call it that.  We are leaving an area at the front of the house uncut to see what wildflowers grow.  There are the usual buttercups and lots of very pretty white flowers whose name I unfortunately don't know and haven't yet identified.  Plenty of thistles too, but I am trying to kill these off as they are huge and quite ugly if left to grow untamed, and we have plenty of these on the outside fields for the birds, bees and butterflies to enjoy.  I am gradually transplanting a few foxgloves, Welsh poppies and Fox and Cubs from other areas of the garden into the new "wildlife" patch to get a bit more variety.  So far everything I have moved has taken, despite some of it already coming out in flower.

Hopefully during the summer I will be making a wildlife pond to go in this area.  The ground here is naturally wet most of the time so it seems the obvious place to make a pond.  There is another natural pond close to the house, but it dries out completely in the summer months and is choked full of yellow iris, very hard to see any frogs, toads or newts that might be around in there and virtually no water in the summer.  Watch this space to see any progress with the pond - once I can find the time to get started!

New Visitor!

A first for me, the first time I have seen a Green Woodpecker.  Hoped they were about and here's the proof!  On the edge of the land, shame they won't come to the bird table like our regular visitor, the Great Spotted Woodpecker.

Woodpecker closely followed by a Jay, which I do see from time to time.  Nice quality videos from the Browning Recon Force again.

And then we have three squirrels, although not "quite" all in shot at the same time!

On the Apeman, this badger knew how to move.  Second Browning camera now on order so I won't need to put-up with second-best.

Green-veined white buterfly

Around the Land

Common Rushes

Fruits of the Common Ash

Fruits of the Common Ash